


Promise of Tomorrow

by dragonsong (NekoAisu)



Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: (which is to say very lightly until near the end), Alternate Universe - Howl's Moving Castle Fusion, Ambiguous Warrior of Light (Final Fantasy XIV), Curse Breaking, Demons, Flirting, Fluff and Angst, Fluff and Humor, Flying, Found Family, Gen, Gender-Neutral Warrior of Light (Final Fantasy XIV), House Cleaning, InteractiveFics Plugin Friendly, Magic, Mentioned in Accordance With the Original Plot, Multi, Mutual Pining, Old Age, Other, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Reader-Interactive, Spells & Enchantments, War, Witch Curses
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-07
Updated: 2020-08-06
Packaged: 2021-03-06 06:54:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,722
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25759180
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NekoAisu/pseuds/dragonsong
Summary: G'raha grumbles to himself. He mumbles and huffs and moans his way up the hills into the wastes because who was that pretentious old witch to curse him? He hasjoint painandwrinklesnow. Krile would never let him hear the end of it if she learned he had been cursed for attempting to kick the Witch of the Wastes out of his father's hat shop.He still can't believe all of this mess because of a walk in the skies with a wizard whose name he never caught.
Relationships: Fray Myste & Warrior of Light, G'raha Tia | Crystal Exarch/Warrior of Light, Solus zos Galvus | Emet-Selch & G'raha Tia | Crystal Exarch, Solus zos Galvus | Emet-Selch/Warrior of Light
Comments: 9
Kudos: 15





	Promise of Tomorrow

**Author's Note:**

> humongous and wholly warranted thank you to Optee, Haru, Sophie, and a small host of others who have helped plan and enable this fic. may it bring you joy (and a very happy catboy) <:3c
> 
> Make sure to add (Y/N) to your InteractiveFics plugin replacement to have your WoL/OC's name inserted instead!

G’raha startles when the bell above the door to his father’s hat shop jingles. He turns, flicking his match to put it out and replacing the glass cover on the lamp. He expected to see a lady or lad in search of a last minute gift, maybe even one of his regulars, but instead is greeted by a man in all black. 

His gown is satin and drapes elegantly over his frame, the shoulders and upper half of his arms obscured by a heavy shawl whose fur matches the same material as his wide-brimmed hat. “What a  _ tacky  _ little shop,” he spits with a simper. “I’ve never seen such tacky little hats, but you? You’re the tackiest of them all.”

He bristles, stepping away from the counter and striding over to the door. “I’m sorry, but we’re  _ closed.  _ I’m going to have to ask you to leave now, sir.”

“Standing up to the Witch of the Wastes?” he asks, smiling unpleasantly wide. “How positively _ heroic.” _

He barely has time to gasp before the Witch’s form thins as if a specter and elongates, flowing toward and then  _ through _ him. He shudders, turning just in time to see the Witch’s lips move from below his hat when he drawls, “Give my  _ regards  _ to (Y/N).”

The door closes and the lock flips with a final  _ click.  _

He straightens up slowly. His back aches and his hat has fallen to the floor. Leaning to pick it up, he spots his hands. Or, at least, he  _ thinks  _ they’re his hands. He would have remembered aging sixty years in a second, he thinks, but hurries over to one of the vanities by one of the hat displays. 

He can’t believe he has  _ wrinkles _ . A lot of them, actually, and when he turns his head, so too does the old man in the mirror. He pokes his nose, pulls at his cheeks, and even sticks out his tongue for good measure. 

“I’ve got to stay calm,” he mutters, beginning to pace. His tail thumps absently against his leg. He comes back around to the mirror and looks at himself again in hopes that it was only a moment’s illusion. He is still old.  _ “I mustn't panic,”  _ he reminds himself. 

He does very poorly at following his own advice.

Come morning, his state of affairs is no better. He’d wrapped himself up in blankets and spent the better part of his night sleeping. Despite the anxiety running rampant throughout his mind, his body had decided that he had a strict bedtime and that it would spare him no quarter. He had fallen asleep in less than half a bell after laying down and hadn’t stirred until morning. 

Being old has its benefits, he supposes. 

“G’raha?” Urianger calls through the door, worry carrying nearly better than his accent. “Art thou well?”

“Go away,” he replies, rasping more from age than how he nearly choked on his own spit. “I’ve caught a  _ terrible  _ cold and wouldn’t want anyone to catch it.”

Urianger sighs loud enough he can hear it from the other side of his room. He says, in the same tone he uses when reminding Ryne to ask for help when she needs it, “I’ll be here, should you need it.”

“Thancred’s rubbing off on you.”

He hears Urianger’s steps recede down the hallway in response. 

He slowly eases himself out of bed and wanders over to his simple, wood-framed mirror. “You can’t stay here,” he whispers to himself, “but look! At least your clothes finally suit you.”

They do, truly, but it’s a backhanded way to compliment his own taste. The black dress he wears is simple and practical. Having abandoned his flashier taste in dress upon leaving Sharlayan to take over the hat shop, he’d been the recipient of Krile’s well-meaning criticism. 

_ “I’m not asking what  _ they  _ want. I’m asking what  _ you  _ want. Do something for yourself, now, will you?” _

And he had! He’d splurged a little on getting gilded thread to embroider the hem a few months ago, but she seemed to have no intentions to let him continue working from sunup to sundown, six days a week, and consistently refuse things he would have  _ suggested  _ back in their days of study. 

He really has become an old man, hasn’t he? No dancing, no dating, no prancing, no preening, no  _ fun.  _ He doesn’t mind it much, but, looking at his newfound wrinkles, he supposes he could make an allowance for one evening out upon his return. Granted, he needs to get the curse lifted and not keel over in the process before making any plans. 

He grabs his hat, spares one last glance to the mirror, and heads out. 

The kitchen is sparingly stocked. Most of the food was bought during his weekly run on the markets and it’s since been five days. Between his coworkers and himself, all the perishables have long since been consumed. Bread and cheese, though? He has enough to pack himself a rucksack for the journey and not fear running out while halfway into the wastes. He snags his shawl on the way out of the parlor and heads onto the street. 

The soldiers pay him no mind. He pays them some. After the day he’d had—with all the  _ flying  _ and running and a mellifluous voice saying,  _ “That’s my boy.” _ —as a result of their harassment, he can’t keep himself from worrying. It isn’t until he’s managed to make his way out of the city and onto the back of a farmer’s wagon that he stops feeling like he needs to hold his breath. 

There had been a young man who had offered him help down the stairs of the overpass. He’d barely remembered that his joints are not so smooth as they used to be when he replied, “No, thank you.” 

He wishes all the off duty soldiery were as polite as the youth nowadays. 

The ride into the Wastes is bumpy. He sits with his shawl drawn tight about his shoulders and knotted at the neck, but the wind still sweeps right through him. He wonders if maybe this is why all of the older professors back at the college had been especially crabby during winter. By the time the farmer makes it to his home and begins to unload his hay, G’raha can no longer feel his butt. His tail is not faring much better, having been tucked tightly under his shawl to avoid bits of hay getting tangled with his fur, and he is too preoccupied with working blood back into his extremities to listen to the shouted warnings that there are “nothin’ but witches and wizards out there!” 

(Why would that stop him, anyways? He’s searching for a very specific witch of the wastes.)

Step by step, he makes his way up into the hills. Pebbles dig into the soles of his shoes and the wind throws dirt in his eyes, but he continues to trudge onward. It feels like it’s been  _ hours  _ when he stops to eat. Sitting down on the ground, he opens his rucksack and tears off a chunk of bread, chewing on it solemnly. 

Taking stock of himself, he rethinks his plan. Of the tasks he set forth, only the first two have been completed and the one he had believed to be of little difficulty has since begun to prove itself a painful endeavor. He’d gotten supplies, managed to skip town, and has been working on traversing the wastes in search of its infamous exiled witch to no result. His joints ache worryingly for how little he’s walked and he finds it to be a comparative blessing that he still has all of his teeth even at age three-hundred-and-four. He knows he’s exaggerating a little (read: a lot), but what difference is there between ninety and somewhere over a few centuries? 

He finishes his bread and takes to nibbling at the cheese with intent to rest for a short time. If he cannot proceed at the pace he intended, he could at least do with not running himself right into the ground trying to achieve it. He looks around with low expectations. There are few trees in the wastes and what bushes grow are all squat and hardy. His chances of finding a suitable walking stick are lower than the sag on his cheeks, but he holds out hope nonetheless. 

His patience is rewarded when he spots an unnaturally large branch sticking out from the side of a bush. He puts down his rucksack and stands. His back cracks and he can feel something pop in a way that is simultaneously lovely and painful. He trudges over to the bush and appraises the stick with a scholar’s eye. It seems thick enough to bear his weight, but he has no idea if it will be the right height for his purposes. 

He gets a grip on its bark and pulls, straining and cursing against the bush’s hold. His hands slip and he pauses, panting for breath, before renewing his efforts with a downward shove. The branch begins to come free and he bears down on it like he would a lever until he gets an entire scarecrow for his efforts. 

The scarecrow looks at him with a drawn on smile. It balances precariously atop its base before bouncing happily. 

“Of course you’d have a turnip for a head,” he grumbles. “I’ve always  _ hated  _ them.” He brushes his hands off on his dress and adjusts his shawl. The scarecrow does not leave. 

“Off with you!” he commands. 

It hops back a quarter foot. 

He crosses his arms. 

It hops back another quarter. 

“Goodbye, then,” he says with a sharp nod. He strides off with as much vigor as he can manage only to hear a steady  _ thunk, thunk, thunk  _ follow behind. He turns around and waves it away like he would a bug. “Go away! I’ll not be seeing you again! I’ve had  _ quite _ enough of witches and spells.”

The scarecrow simply hops up and gives a little twirl all over again. Its punched-out hat and painted smile seem almost mischievous as it sways in the wind. 

“Are you waiting for a favor?”

It bounces twice as if to agree. 

He takes a moment to think before saying, “I’ll need a place to stay.”

The scarecrow hops away and down the road. He chuckles to himself. They’re in the wastes with nary an inn or home to be found. What could that poor thing do if not stay far,  _ far  _ away from him on a fool’s errand? He’s become quite cunning in his old age, though perhaps not cunning enough. 

He has barely made it up the ridge to a fork in the path when he hears the selfsame sound of the scarecrow returning. It drops something at his feet before hopping away again. He looks down. 

A cane stands resolutely before him. The handle is fashioned in the shape of a dragon’s head with simplified scaling forming an even grip. He places his hand atop it and finds it suits him  _ perfectly  _ (perhaps too well). 

Walking from then on becomes less of a chore. With the cane to help him make his way further out less strenuous, his worry turns to the biting winds. He had noticed them during the ride out, but now that he’s made it a few miles from the town, they’ve grown fiercer than ever. Without trees to stand in the way of gusts, they sweep by him uninhibited, tearing at his clothes and nearly taking his hat with them on every occasion. 

He resolves to sit down as the sun begins to fade behind the horizon. With the temperature dropping and his feet aching more than they have ever before, he begins to wonder if his trip was in folly. Yes, he intends to get the spell reversed. Yes, he is going to give that godsdamned witch a piece of his mind. He is also tired and would give nearly anything to lay down by a fire and warm his freezing fingers. “I’ve hardly moved,” he mutters. “My entire day spent walking and look at me! I can still see the town!”

He’s in the middle of picking at the knot of his shawl when he smells it─woodsmoke. Someone must have a fire nearby. That, or perhaps an entire cabin is just outside of his vision. He stands just in time to hear a low, metallic groaning and then, as if to mock him, a heavy and inexorable  _ whump-creeeak  _ that he associates with gossip and fairy tales. 

Over the ridge comes a moving castle. It stands easily thirty feet tall, but with all of its spires and struts could be well beyond fifty at its highest point. He has no time to marvel because that scarecrow, that  _ blasted ridiculous turniphead,  _ comes skipping up like it is proud to present the finest of magical lodgings for his use. 

“This is not what I meant when I said a place to stay!” he shrieks. Even the curse cannot stop his voice from growing shrill. The moving castle is home to (Y/N), the wizard rumored to steal the hearts of the young and beautiful for their own gain. 

Though, thinking about it, he is no longer young and has never considered himself to be particularly beautiful. He might have as a child before he realized that the staring was not meant as a kindness, but with his eyes being as they are, even the superstition of odd colors bringing luck did not save him from the suspicion and disgust of his peers. The wizard would surely ignore him and he could sneak out first thing after some rest, he rationalizes, but before he can worry about losing his heart, he still needs to get inside the castle. 

He does an about face and takes off as fast as he can to catch up to the mechanical menace. It marches on, heedless of his attempts to get ahold of the railing, until he nearly trips face first into it, tumbling onto the doorstep and losing his shawl in the process.

The scarecrow goes chasing after it before he even opens his mouth. He struggles with the doorknob before it gives, the door swinging open with a warning creak, and he stumbles inside, snatching his shawl from the scarecrow with a hurried, “Thank you! Goodbye!”

He closes the door and heaves a sigh. He aches all over! What could an old man do to catch a break in these parts?

The stairs are not kind to his knees, but there is a fire in the hearth and he is much too tired to care about anything overmuch. He shuffles over to the chair before the fire and places his things down. He tosses a few logs into the embers for good measure before sitting down. 

_ “Psst! Hey!”  _

He blinks the sleep from his eyes and hopes he looks more alert than he feels. “Hello?”

_ “Hey, yes, hello! What are you doing here?” _

He looks around and then to the fire. The only odd thing about it is that it is more black than gold and has eyes. He’s seen more than enough as of the past day in terms of spells and curses that the fire staring at him seems no more novel than a bouncing turnip-headed scarecrow. “Is that you?” he asks, leaning in ever so slightly. 

_ “Yes it is, old man,”  _ the fire spits.  _ “What are you doing here? I don’t envy you one bit with a curse like that.” _

“And what of you? You’re a strange looking fire.”

_ “Fire  _ demon,” they correct, spitting cinders.  _ “I am the all powerful Fray!” _

He nods, yawning. “Could you break my curse? You said you’re all powerful.”

The demon ripples like they shrugged.  _ “I could, but you’d have to break mine first.” _

“Is that a deal?”

_ “Hmm… maybe.” _

G’raha settles into his seat a little more, feeling himself begin to truly drift off to sleep, and mutters, “If I break your curse, you’ll keep your word.”

_ “Don’t sound so sure,”  _ they quip. 

He closes his eyes.

_ “Hey! Hey, old man! What are you─are you  _ kidding  _ me?! Come on, don’t fall asleep!” _

But he is already out like a light. 

**Author's Note:**

> mr g'raha tia please dont slip a disk
> 
> hmu on:  
> Twitter [@khirimochi](https://twitter.com/khirimochi) OR [@TheHolyBody (NSFW)](https://twitter.com/TheHolyBody)  
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